I really liked this book. It was really emotional and you would think that it was a true story because it sounded so real. It really came from the heart.I would reccomend this book to anybody that likes horses.

The worst part of the book was the first chapter.Hariets mother had died from a wreck. she was riding her horse when suddenly a tractor and trailor came over a hill and hit her.In her mother's will Hariet's mother wrote for her to go live with her Aunt Sarah.She didn't like her Aunt.

The thing that was most vivid to me was the desription of the horses. She described them so well I could picture them in my head. I think the climax was when Hariet ran away from her Aunts house. Her Aunt had slapped her because they got in a fight. Hariet finally realized that they had to get along because she had no place to go.

This is a good horse stpry. It is about Harriet Gibson (Harry) and her two year old colt; a Morgan who is called Kid.
When Harry's mother dies of a bad heart or from a riding accident with her mare Belle, spirited Harry has to go and live with her stern Aunt Sarah, and her Uncle Clayton. While her guardian/doctor, Dr. Vesper sells her old house she chooses top bring along two big carpet bags filled with her clothes, an unbroekn 2 year old colt, and her mother's sewing Machine. Harry thinks she will have bad luck there but she soon makes friends with her uncle Clayton's brother Truman and his old thiry year old horse, jerry and begains leading a farming life. Different from her Town Life. Harry continues living there, occasionally trying to break in Kid. When she drove him hard using forse she learns a lesson.
Nevertheless this is a good book!:)

Unbroken is about Harriet (Harry) and and Kid, (a horse) two orphans. Harry is sent to live with mean Aunt Sarah. Aunt Sarah talks badly about Harry's mother. Harry doesn't want to stay, but gradually gets used to the farm, and Aunt Sarah. Since school is too far away to walk, Harry tries her best to train Kid in time for school. I thougt this book was so awesome! This book is definitely a must read so read it!

My husband and I are foster parents. Inspiration from this book prompted me to decorate the bed room, where our foster child sleeps, with stars. It turned out really cute. It is very easy for these children to "give up hope", but if we continue to remind them of their inner strength, and that there IS hope for their future, remarkable things can happen. Sometimes all they need is for someone to believe in them.

We received this book yesterday and I read it to my two foster sons (aged 7 and 8) at bedtime. The asked me to read eat over again until I got too tired! It follows a girl named Kit from when the social workers arrive at her mother's house to pick her up, to feeling more settled in her foster home. My sons felt less alone in their experience when the story explained that there are other children feeling the same things (sometimes happy, angry, confused, sad). It ends on a positive and personal note that they will be okay. I did think it odd that a star speaks to and comforts the child, but one of my sons said he especially liked hearing about the star. One caution: they were not familiar with the name "Kit" and thought she was being called "Kid." I recommend this book.

The Star: A Story to Help Young Children Understand Foster Care, by Cynthia Miller Lovell, is a refreshingly sensitive book that affirms and encourages children who have been taken from their homes and placed in foster care. The author addresses feelings and questions that children typically have and supportively lets them know that they are not alone. Examples of some issues that are broached include the following: "What does being a foster child mean?", "Am I a foster child because I did something bad?", "Can I eat an apple from the table?" These simple questions are emotionally charged and are of utmost importance to children who ask them.This easy to read book with beautiful watercolor illustrations of children from various cultures and socio-economic groups, is a non-threatening medium to address this sensitive topic with foster children. It indirectly inspires hope, comforts,and affirms each child's uniqueness. The handbook that can be purchased in addition to the book, is a must for adults who wish to indirectly ease children's transition into foster care. This user friendly book provides questions about the main character of The Star and fun activities for the children who read this book. By engaging in these short activities, caregivers can help nurture the bond between themselves and the children whom they help. Because they can also gain insight into the foster child's psyche, they have more tools to effectively help each unique child. In addition to helping foster children and foster parents, The Star can be useful in building sensitivity of this issue and eroding at the stigma of foster care,for peers,educators, social workers,nurses, churches, communities and occupational therapists. As a professional advocate of children in urban and rural areas, this is the only children's book that I have seen available for foster children. It is a must for school and private libraries.

This book is about a girl whose mum does not want her. It makes you think about how life is for children whose lives aren't as happy as your own. But the book has lots of happy parts too - the lady Tracy goes to live with is kind and they do fun things together. And there is at least one big surprise in the book. Tracy is an interesting mix of kind and cruel. As with all the Jacqueline Wilson books, I couldn't put this one down.

If your a fan on Jaquelines books this is a must read book. Its the BEST ever! Tracy Beaker is such a funny character and I had a fare few laughs from the book and also tears. After you read this book i can reccomend the dare game which follows on from the story of tracy beaker. If you want a book which will make you laugh and that you can read over and over again, This is the 1!!!!!

This is another excellent book by Jacqueline Wilson it's funny and humourous and children and adults alike will thoroughly enjoy it. Wilson really knows how to write a book that children will sit engaged with until they've completed it. Children who don't normally enjioy reading will love this book.

I loved this thoughtful and touching story of the young boy on the river. It brought you right to the time in which it took place.

Every child in Delaware and beyond should own a copy of this book. We have all grown up hearing about the pirates that threatened Delaware's River and Bays. Here is an exciting adventure story about Mat Burton, a young orphan who, after accidently observing a tavern keeper rob a patron, runs away to live with a prosperous family. Mat protects his new family from pirates and discovers the secret that links his old boss to the pirates. Great story with accurate 18th century details. Takes place along what is now known as "The Coastal Heritage Greenway."

Characters the reader really cares about; an action driven plot; good conquers evil. These are the ingredients that make for a great book to read. It is faced paced but carefully crafted to give the reader a flavor of life in 1748 British colonies, not yet known at the United States. We can expect much from Marnie Laired for this is her first book for young readers.

It's about time someone wrote a book on this topic. Is the book revolutionary or going to create a great upheaval? Of course not. Is it good sound, sensible advice? You bet!! Whether one is a CEO, parent, child, laborer,secretary, politician, professional, etc., we are faced with daily decisions ranging in magnitude from 0 to 8.0 on the Richter Scale. From what to do for dinner to what college to attend? From what to wear to do I take this new job and move my family? It's amazing though how difficult it can be sometimes to make a decision. For those involved in selling anything,you know first hand what a hurdle it can be to get someone to decide. For no other reason than to provide yourself with greater personal insight, make the decision to buy and read this book.

Saw the book on the shelf and picked it up, glanced at the back and inside back cover and then a few chapters. I was hooked.

This is an excellent book for explaining why we make decisions and how we can learn to make better decisions and very timely here in the SF bay area of California where there are lay offs in high tech and people are trying to decide to stay in CA or move and all the other issues we deal with on a day to day basis.

The Chapters that are really helping me are Law#10 Do What You Really Want,#11 If It Ain't Simple, It Ain't Gonna Work, #12 Have a Hopeful heart and a Cautious Head, #28 You Don't Have to Run from Risk and #29 Following Through Makes Decisions Wonderful.

This is a GREAT book for those of us who are at a fork in the road and it looks like a real fork with 3-5 choices. Or those of us who feel like the rope in a tug a war game and are feeling the rope burn. This is why I got the book, because I needed some sound proven (important word) advise that would help be choose the right branch or path in the road and the right way to avoid more rope burn.

On page 111 he says "You don't just make a decision. You live a decision" which is wise advise. And that "You have to ask yourself what you would want if none of the people in your life were in the picture". In Chapter or Law 11 (excuse the bad English in the title. English teachers will wince) he asks "Are you making things more complicated than they need to be?"

The author Dr Charles Foster really knows, appreciates and practices the KISS mode of life. Keep It Simple Silly. Great book and well worth the money and time. And a book that you will actually use a great deal and should have on your book shelf. Buy a copy for your local library as well. Share the wisdom with others.

Every time I pick the book up and re-read it I learn something I had missed the times before. This is a sign that a book has WISDOM!

Personal decision-making is something that few study, and even fewer work on to systematically improve upon their processes and practices. This book will allow anyone to become aware of weaknesses in their decision-making, and remedy those flaws. It will be especially valuable to those considering questions like who to marry and when, which career or job to choose, residential location, whether to have children or not, leaving a relationship, saving and investing money, handling health issues, assisting children with their problems, and the focus of your retirement.

Although I have had a great deal of formal decision-making training, I found that it did not cover many of the areas of advice here. So even if you think you know this subject, I suggest that you take a look at this book. Think of this book as a compendium of common sense that may not occur to you while you wrestle with an important decision.

Dr. Foster is a Ph.D. and M.B.A. so he has a sense of the theoretical as well as the practical. His 30 laws were divined through a 12 year study where the decisions of a few dozen people were tracked. Then the group was divided into two, based on the good or bad quality of the decisions. Those things more often done by the "good" decision makers became the basis of the laws.

Although the group is too small to be representative of the whole population, it is certainly an improvement over intuiting the ideas in the absence of any data. No data or analysis of these cases are provided, so you cannot see how strongly the observations held for yourself. That is the key limitation of the book, from my point of view.

I would normally be skeptical of such poorly documented advice, based on a "study" but the answers fit my intuition pretty well. So I am awarding five stars based on my personal reaction to the laws, rather than to the "study" itself.

In making a decision, you are encouraged to apply all 30 laws . . . not to look just for the laws that apply. You will find that some laws seem to conflict with others. I interpreted this as trying to help you acquire a more balanced perspective. Consider, for example, law #2 (Don't Decide Until You're Ready) which could come into conflict with law #4 (Choose It or Lose It) which points out that you cannot let too much time pass. In this case, the author suggests that the first 10 laws are in order of importance, and those that rank more highly should outweigh the lower ones. So you should take whatever time you need, keeping in mind that you don't want to let so much time pass that you make the decision through inaction. You'll just have to resolve these conflicts for yourself, as best you can. People will differ on how they do that.

Many such books are no more than a list of 30 laws, with some examples given. I was pleased to see that almost every law also had detail behind it that would help you apply that law properly. For example, law #7 (Turn Big Decisions into a Series of Little Decision Steps) contained information to help you identify smaller steps and to move expeditiously through them. Each law also had one or more interesting personal examples, presumably drawn from the "study" that led to the laws.

All of the laws fit into one of three principles:

"(1) Prudence is a virtue.

(2) Action is better than inaction.

(3) Decisions exist to make things wonderful."

Perhaps the best advice in the book is to "care about making a good choice." The book encourages you to proceed confidently. "Right now you have everything you need to make good decisions."

Here are some of my favorites among the laws:

"Focus on the Most Important Thing."

"Look for All the Good Things That Can Happen."

"You Always Have Better Options."

"Get What You Need To Feel Safe."

"Never Let a Lower Priority Outweigh a Higher Priority."

"Know Your Achilles' Heel."

"Make Yourself Proud."

"Know What's Real."

"Keep an Open Mind."

"Take Care of the Basics."

"Some of the Things You 'Know' Are Wrong."

"You Don't Have to Run from Risk."

For the most part, this book is so qualitative that it will not focus you enough for decisions that can benefit from calculations. I suggest you take a look at "Smart Choices" to get ideas for quantifying some of these important personal decisions. That book contains some excellent examples of how to do this for issues like selecting a residence.

After you have laid out your decision and come to a tentative conclusion, I suggest that you sleep on it before making your final step. Many times, I've found that a much improved thought emerges from the delay of one more night.

May your life be filled with great decisions!

I also suggest that you share this book with anyone you know who has difficulty with decisions. That approach can reduce the amount of problems you will have to help others resolve in the future.

"'The Wishing Well' was truly a pleasure to read. I found myself wanting to reach out to help Timothy and Lisa as well as wanting to strike out against Hennigan and Mathews. The underlying human morality depicted in this story forces the reader to ask himself the tough question of 'what would I do?' I give this book a solid 4.0 rating and look forward to reading future works by this author."

"Having read "The Wishing Well" twice allows me the right to loudly proclaim that it is a great book! It is a book that you don't want to put down until you've seen to it that the children are safe. My adult son read the book over Christmas, really liked it, and his daughter is now enjoying the privilege. I rate it easily a 5."

The urge to read the next page, the next chapter and the conclusion is unbearable. If Oprah gets her hands on this book it will make the book of the month. If Disney is aware of it, it will become a made for TV movie.

While "Wrong for Each Other" may not be a the most weighty play, it is a well crafted journey through the highs and lows of one couple's relationship. Over the course of the two acts, we watch Rudy and Nora navigate the path to love and back. Through this journey, we are amused, saddened and most importantly turned inward. There is something in both characters for everyone. Beyond all of this, it just makes you want a stage and an audience -- the material is light, fun, and intriguing to perform. I can recommend it wihtout reservation.

"Wrong For Each Other" is a love story that is based on a mismatched couple. Despite their differences.. that often make you laugh until you cry... their is often moments of deep emotional committment... when the characters refuse to allow their differences to separate them forever... As an acting student this piece is workable into a great Duo for forensic.

This witty play written by Norm Foster is a charming and intruiging ride through the highs and lows of a couples relationship. Although Norah and Rudy love eachother, sometimes love just isn't enough...or is it? A wonderful story that makes you laugh, cry, and most of all a story everyone can relate too. A brilliant success.

This book was a great read! I especially enjoyed it because I'm interested in adopting in the future, and this gave me an insight into the foster care system, albeit in Canada. The writing was great, although it's definitely a young adult book and not an adult book! The plot line would be a bit too easy for adults, but I don't think this would be a problem with younger readers (high school would be fine with it).

All in all, I really enjoyed this! I hope to read more of this author's books!

The book is great for me. I only started reading this afternoon and I already love it! It's about this great Sara Moone a very interesting character whom many people will be able to relate to. Once you start this book...you won't be able to put it down. Go get it!

Lacks the highwire acrobatics-of-abstraction of some other essays such as his most recent in Harper's, 'Tense Present' (his original title?), or 'E Unibus Pluram'. That latter essay, especially, feels like a ride on Space Mountain: unexpected twists and turns, and even though we end up someplace familiar (the oppresive irony of pop culture), we feel giddy and disoriented when we disembark; it contains dense (in the good sense) arguments without making an overly 'difficult read', a term I've come to define as prose which takes such effort to understand that it unfairly bars us from developing any response (a deceptive practice of the insecure or maybe sometimes an innocent fault of people who are in truth not really Writing). Unlike many cultural/literary critics, Wallace engages our critical skills without disarming them. I'm also always impressed by the exhastive treatment of subject he gives while maintaing constant verisimilitude (no length padding for Teacher) and the way he keeps terms broad without descending into vague mysticism. As exhastive as it feels while reading them--like being adrift at sea with no land in sight and the current likely to change direction any time--his essays are also a joy for the inspiration they inspire in the reader: when I finish, I always feel I have something to add myself as if it were an uncommon experience of participatory democracy.

Saddly, for this latest effort, one would be doing most of the work in said part. dem. Much of the qualities mentioned above is missing in this essay, an extended version of a Rolling Stone article about a week on the McCain2000 campaign trail. Wallace spends a lot of time on reportage which--though usually amusing and by itself informative--spends a lot of time going nowhere.

Where it fails the most is in the last chapter. For the first time, I've sensed a certain criticism of DFW for myself, that he's treading on covered ground. In the past he has never made the mistake of ignoring the obvious issues of the modern American condition for fear of being unoriginal, nor has he made that mistake now. Unfortunately, even though the way he has taken this time is as sound as any, I feel like we've been cheated out of his usual tour off the beaten path.

It's fun to read DFW on my computer because when I come across one of the excessively big words that his Disneyworld-sized vocabulary has littered on the page, I can click on the word and find out what it means.
DFW is a super smart writer. This is Wallace on Politics, and never are his ideas trite, or pat, or simply pithy for effect. He is a philosopher on the junket, and it's a pleasure to read, even if McCain is kind of a nobody now, and the world is consumed by seemingly greater events. It's maybe wise not to forget why and how Bush got this far, and why, just maybe, he kind of bites as a president, lackey that he is for corporate interest, and with no real education in foreign relations, or world history. So, in this essay, DFW discusses the merits of McCain and why he is an interesting candidate no matter which side of the middle ground you stumble towards in these dimly lit, fearful post 9/11 days.
E-books are no longer the wave of the future, someone told me, and so I have completely stopped reading books and now I only read E-books, just in case they are wrong. E-books are like regular books, you can flip the pages, and bookmark pages, and the pages are white, and the font is like a book's font, and there is nothing different about an E-book from a regular book, except the fact that this E-book is bluntly cheap, and it rests inside my computer.

It's not hard to read it on the screen. It's no harder than reading this review. In fact, it's easier. The print is bigger.

Not everything with an E attached to it has proved to be of high quality. This is why we they announced a recession again this year. Despite the disapproval of the government, the market analysts, and 100% of all antiquarian booksellers with electronic things, this is still a good E-book. DFW is a great writer, talented to a striking degree. His books are basically incredible, all of them, even this electronically disseminated one.

He teaches at Disneyland, is what I last heard, which may be why I likened his genius to the size of one of those parks.

Nevertheless.

It's hard *not* to find something written by or about David Foster Wallace these days, and this e-book is an interesting addition to the journalistic pieces like the ones he's written for Harper's. For one thing, Wallace's mordant wit is as sharp and evenly placed here as ever. Better yet: the e-book contains material that was cut (Wallace explains why in the e-book) from the original publication in Rolling Stone. The e-book also helps you navigate through Wallace's footnotes easily and quickly.

This is a collection of short stories with just one of them being the one with Pip and Flinx which is why I bought the book in the first place, but all the stories were greatly enjoyable. I would reccomend this for light reading for anyone.

Of the 12 short stories herein, only 1 is a Pip & Flinx story, although others share the Humanx Commonwealth universe. Foster provides a short introduction for each, discussing the story's genesis, as well as an introduction for the entire book. The cover art for this edition is from "Wu-Ling's Folly" - not Pip, in other words.

"Swamp Planet Christmas" (1976) A series of e-mail messages, mostly between a little girl writing to Santa Claus and a government computer across the galaxy, this snafu tale is intended to be in the style of Eric Frank Russell (one of Foster's idols; I recommend his _Next of Kin_).

"Snake Eyes" (1978) - The only Pip & Flinx story in this volume, set between _The End of the Matter_ and _Flinx in Flux_.

"Bystander" (1978) Chapman was dispatched as sole crew on the rescue ship sent to evacuate the Abraxis colony to escape its flare-prone star. He's just a backup to the tertiary backups, so when the ship awakens him early, he is himself in mortal peril. As if the upcoming freak flare weren't enough, a mysterious Dhabian spacecraft is pacing his ship - those aliens who ordinarily refuse to have anything to do with humanity.

"What Do the Simple Folk Do?" (1979) Picture a future in which "plot it yourself" stories are mixed with first-class medical technology, where network execs argue that viewers expect realism to include *real* damage - after all, what are actors being paid for? No joke when one's ratings slip...

"Gift of a Useless Man" (1979) Lilliputian overtones here. When Peterson, fleeing for his life, crashed on the tiny planetoid, he was left paralyzed as well as hopelessly stranded. But when a tiny, telepathic alien befriends him, he becomes far more valuable than he ever was in his old life...

"Surfeit" (1982) A Humanx Commonwealth story, although not involving Pip and Flinx, but rather the Monsters of Dis - the dream of surfers across the galaxy.

"The Dark Light Girl" (1981) Haskell Wells decided to take the back country roads from L.A. to Dallas, seeing the untouched part of the country while changing jobs to another newspaper. Now he's seeing more of it than he bargained for, stranded for a day in Agua Caliente, New Mexico by a torn-up tire until the mechanic can get another from the next town...

"Instant with Loud Voices" (1982) Twenty years of hard work - continual design improvements integrated into the growing system - have gone into making DISRA the biggest and best computer in the world, and for 6 years it's been able to solve problems from earthquake to crop failure. The world depends on it - but it has weaknesses that no simpler system can have, and its creator is preparing to ask a dangerous question...

"Communication" (1981) Earth is about to have its first contact with aliens, wish to deal a single world leader, based on their analysis of Earth's communication broadcasts, who seems more popular and durable than any other. Who will it turn out to be?

"The Last Run" (1982) Bill "the Wisp" Switch is a genius at souping up engines, and gets a kick out of street racing (where a mere 150 mph isn't worth the gasoline it costs). But after Wisp defeated a Lambourgini and a Ferrari one night, a new challenger offered him the chance of a lifetime.

"Wu-Ling's Folly" (1982) The old West's gold was bound to attract a dragon or two - hard luck on the Butterfield stagecoach line, in a world that doesn't believe in dragons. Fortunately, "Mad Amos" Malone makes a living solving unusual problems. (See Foster's short story collection _Mad Amos_ for more of the character.)

"Village of the Chosen" (1983) Harvey Vickers has spent 20 years in Africa for UPI, and while he's been in worse places than Mogadishu, recording the endless cycle of devastation has burned him out. Until he collides with a woman in the street - knocking her veil off to reveal a face as exquisite as an emerald, and about the same color...

Some of my favorite short stories are included: "Gift of a Useless Man", "Communication" and Village of the chosen".